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Meet downstairs at 4:45am to fly to Lukla, a 35 min flight.
No streetlights but people out walking to work.
We got to the airport and lots of groups look like the are doing the same thing, they have a large departure hall which all funnels into one door. After we checked in we just had to wait.
The flight was delayed by 30mins due to weather at Lukla but we were the first plane to go.
Lukla is a transit point town, very scary runway which goes downhill then drops off, planes constantly landing and taking off.
We got our bags, met our porters and guide ( Pemba) and went to get some breakfast.
We left at 8am for our first stop (Phakding) which is a 3 hour trek, Pemba said a gentle stroll, he turned up with sneakers, light jacket, so this must be easy.
The walk would have been similar to Rupaki Track with a few steep parts thrown in.
We arrived just after 11:30, the tea house is like a big lodge with exposed timber on walls and roof, we were upstairs and I am sharing with Vinod who is an American on his early 60's who is an Investment Banker from Minnesota.
We had lunch and decided to explore the village, ten minutes later mission accomplished, I found an Illy coffee shop with free wi-fi so after having a chat with Nic and the boys, I sat there with the group in the sun for the next couple of hours, watching Trekkers, Yaks, donkeys and Sherpas walking past.
Further down they are building a house and all the bricks are individually cut from large blocks of granite, would have been about ten guys making bricks and one guy next to the path swinging a large sledge hammer trying to smash a large piece of granite into smaller pieces for the others to chip away at, not forgetting the shards of granite flying everywhere when he was hitting this block.
Dinner was fried rice, few games of cards and off to bed about 9am.
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